


Five Times the Dread Kids Kissed Each Other, +1 Time They Kissed Someone Else

by aunt_zelda



Category: Sagas of Sundry, Sagas of Sundry: Dread
Genre: Alcohol, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Crying, Experimentation, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It, High School, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Open Relationships, Other, Period-Typical Homophobia, Questioning, Recreational Drug Use, Rituals, Teenage Drama, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 07:29:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12164298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: Five first kisses among the Dread kids as they grew up, plus a surprise series of kisses at the end.





	Five Times the Dread Kids Kissed Each Other, +1 Time They Kissed Someone Else

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers in the end notes for whose first kisses were with whom.

1.

“Hey, Tanner?”

“Yeah?”

Sat squirms, legs dangling off the edge of the swing. “You ever kissed anyone before?”

Tanner shakes his head. 

“Me neither.”

Sat swings a bit more, legs pumping the air to propel her up and down. Tanner mirrors her, less enthusiastically. 

Sat slows again, feet kicking the pebbles on the ground. “You wanna try it?”

Tanner stares at her. “Uh … with you?”

“It’s stupid, never mind,” Sat blushes and looks away.

“No! I mean … I … sure? If you want to.”

Sat perks up. “Really? Ok!” She twists around on the swing and leans forward. 

Tanner looks scared, eyes gone almost as huge as his glasses. He gulps, and inches forward to meet her. 

They mash their lips against each other for a while. 

Sat pulls back. “So … that was a kiss, huh?”

“Yeah,” Tanner gulps again. 

“Huh.” Sat sways on the swing. “Cool.” She starts to swing again. 

After a few moments, Tanner starts swinging too. 

 

2\. 

Darby’s 16th birthday is celebrated when her parents are out of town for a business trip. That means the entire high school gathers at Darby’s house, bringing beer and food and their most outrageous outfits. A flood starts in the third bathroom. The football captain and the head cheerleader fuck in Darby’s parent’s bed. Someone sets a fire on the lawn.

Downstairs, a group of kids play spin the bottle. There’s a lot of shrieking and laughter and very little actual kissing. 

Tanner joins in, spins, and gets Kayden. 

“Gross. No way.” Tanner scowls. “Do over.”

Kayden rolls his eyes but for once doesn’t have a snappy comment. 

Tanner spins again and gets one of the cheerleaders. She squeals “Ew, no way!” and the game falls apart soon afterwards.

Later, Kayden corners Tanner in the basement hallway, by the washing machine and the dryer. Loud music thumps distantly. 

“Hey, I owe you a kiss.”

“Fuck off,” Tanner grumbles, nursing a red solo cup full of some very watered down beer. 

“It’s the rules,” Kayden insists. He brackets Tanner against the washing machine and puts his hands on Tanner’s shoulders. Licking his lips, he leans forward.

Tanner’s hands flail and the kiss … happens. Kayden’s good at it. He tries to slip his tongue into Tanner’s mouth and Tanner’s lips part out of shock. Shock and something else, maybe. 

Tanner yelps and jerks away, scrambling free of Kayden’s grasp.

“Knew it.” Kayden grins, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His gaze dips down to Tanner’s crotch, and he licks his lips meaningfully. 

Tanner feels a stab of fear in his stomach. Then the anger bubbles up, spurred on by the alcohol. “Don’t … don’t tell anyone about this! And don’t touch me! Ever!” Tanner shoves past Kayden and heads for the stairs. “Freak!” he spits over his shoulder.

 

3\. 

“I’m just saying, I’m here if you wanna try.”

Darby chews her lower lip. “I dunno, Kayden.”

They’re a bit buzzed. It’s nothing too intense, hotboxing the old shed in the woods behind Kayden’s house doesn’t accomplish much, but it’s something. Sat’s in detention, Tanner’s off doing whatever the fuck it is that he does alone, and Raina is at the special art exhibition at the museum in the city. So Kayden and Darby got high and are waiting around for Sat to get out of detention and give them some focus and direction for the rest of their Saturday. 

“It’s just … what if I try, right, and I like it? What’s that mean? Was I wrong? Am I being stupid? Is this just a fucking phase?” Darby sighs heavily. She’d kill for a bag of chips right about now. 

“That’s like, way too deep for me right now, man,” Kayden says, staring at the ceiling. Raina painted some abstract art up there a while back, and when they get high it moves. 

“I’m not a man, that’s the problem,” Darby gives Kayden a shove. 

“You’d be a hot man. Bet your dick would be massive.” Kayden giggles. “Darby the dude! Darby the dick!”

Darby laughs at that too, because laughing is easy right now. Relaxing is easy. 

Once they’ve settled down again. Darby stretches. She’s hungry, her head is buzzing a bit, and she feels a bit … prickly. 

“Oh. I’m horny.” Darby blinks. “Weird.”

Kayden props himself up on an elbow. “Really? Care to share with the class, Darby?” He waggles his tongue suggestively. 

“Shut up,” Darby kisses him, half tackling him onto the shitty old couch they hauled out into the shed six months ago. 

Kayden goes limp in her grasp, letting Darby take the lead. She drools on him a bit, working her lips and trying to get as much from the kiss as possible. Finally, she clambers off of him and wipes her face on her sleeve. 

“Anything?” Kayden asks.

“Nah.” Darby sighs. “Fuck. I’m gay.”

Kayden slaps her on the back. “Congratulations.” 

 

4\. 

They’ve been holding hands in secret for weeks now. Raina can’t stop doodling women, full lips and sparkling eyes and sharp noses. Not Darby in particular, there’s still a risk of someone finding her sketchbook after all, but she draws women exclusively for weeks. 

Every time they hang out at each other’s houses seems like a secret meeting. Raina feels like she’s in a spy movie, having a liaison with an informant. She wonders if her parents would accept a Russian spy over a lesbian, and decides not to think too hard about that.

They haven’t even kissed yet. 

Raina has imagined it of course. She’s been imagining it since she was thirteen and all elbows and knees and met Darby at summer camp and thought Darby was the coolest person ever. She imagined kissing Darby out on the lake in a canoe, up the tall tree kids climbed even though the counselors told them not to climb, under the 4th of July fireworks when nobody else was looking. 

Since then, the fantasies have gotten a bit more elaborate and a lot more grown up. Now she thinks about kissing Darby in the back of a movie theater, in the front seat of a fancy car, at a rock concert full of other … girls like them. 

Raina has never kissed anyone, or been kissed. One night when they were all high and babbling, they’d gone around talking about first kisses. Even Tanner had stuttered about ‘a girl in 2nd grade’ and Raina’s heart had sunk, knowing she was the last one of her friend group. 

She likes watching Sat and Kayden. Not in a creepy way, Sat and Kayden invite looks, they want to be stared at, half-grinding in public and attached at the hip (or neck or mouth) in school more often than not. For all their detentions and scoldings, they’re allowed to do things like hold hands or sit on each other’s laps in public. Raina and Darby can’t do that. They can’t even go to Prom together officially. 

So Raina watches, and doodles, and thinks about kissing. 

The Homecoming Dance isn’t something Raina wants to go to. Her mom insists she’ll regret it years from now if she doesn’t, and sometimes it’s worth it to just go along with what her mom wants and avoid a fight. Raina puts on a dress that feels awkward, and shoes that make her wobble, and stands on the porch while her mother takes dozens of pictures. 

The dance itself isn’t very fun. Raina shuffles on the gym floor with Tanner. Kayden is out back, banned a year ago from all school functions for spiking the punch bowl, and Sat’s with him. Darby drags Tanner and Raina outside to the others, and they huddle behind the bleachers. Sat and Kayden are smoking, Tanner is taking pictures of the football players doing donuts in the field, and Darby and Raina climb up onto the bleachers to get out of the weed smoke. 

Raina’s not sure when it happens exactly. One minute they’re snuggling, wrapped up under Kayden’s jacket, and next they’re kissing. There’s a car engine screaming in the distance but Raina doesn’t hear it any more. 

Darby is kissing her. She’s kissing Darby. She’s having her first kiss. 

It’s nothing like Raina imagined, nothing like how she drew. It’s even better. 

 

5\. 

Sat isn’t homeless anymore. She has a shitty apartment, but it’s an apartment. Most of her paycheck gets dumped into it, paying rent and fixing leaks in the roof and stuffing cheap caulking into the walls to keep out the winter’s cold. She and Kayden live together, pooling resources – her shitty bartending earnings, his shitty video store clerk earnings. 

They’re not homeless, and they’re not using. (The occasional bit of weed doesn’t count.) Life is better than it was before. 

At least, that’s what Sat convinces herself, when Raina visits during Thanksgiving break a few months after Tanner died. 

It isn’t until Sat is making dinner on the one stovetop spot that doesn’t make a gross smell if you use it, watching Raina perched on the edge of the couch Sat and Kayden looted from a curb three weeks ago, that she sees the place how Raina must see it. She sees the mold and the grime and the crumbs and the trash. She sees the scuffs and the hole Kayden punched in the wall. She sees all their shitty furniture, taken from curbs and dumpsters. 

Sat makes it through dinner, chats with Raina about college and her art projects, deflects about her bar tending gig as much as she can. Then she’s standing in front of the heap of plates in the sink, remembering how the sink backs up so much and they can’t afford a plumber, and starts crying. 

Raina holds her, guides her to the couch and holds her tighter, until Sat has cried herself out. 

“Let me help,” Raina says softly. 

“You’re a guest,” Sat mumbles, half-remembered etiquette from her shitty mom rising in her memory. 

“I’m your friend. Let me help.” 

They get to work. Raina is a force of nature, tackling the dishes, the stovetops, the fridge, the trash. She finds a bottle of vinegar and scours everything in sight, removes stains Sat had begun to think of as constant companions. She gets a bucket and a wrench from the closet and attacks the pipes under the sink. The room reeks briefly, and then the sink is clear. 

Sat starts crying again, in a clean apartment. “Why am I such a mess?” she asks, as Raina brings her a glass of water. 

“You’re not. You’re doing a great job, Sat. I had to learn all this stuff myself, ok? And now you know some of it.” Raina sits down on the couch beside her, sighing. “It wouldn’t kill Kayden to help out with some of this.”

“Yeah it would,” Sat rolls her eyes. “Listen, it was hard enough convincing him to sign the lease for this place. I’m just glad he didn’t go lay down on the railroad tracks or something. I’d rather he was here making a mess where I can keep an eye on him, than … not.”

Raina nods, face grim. After a moment, she asks, “Who keeps an eye on you, though?” 

Sat shrugs. “Me.”

Raina pouts. “That’s not right.”

“Well, that’s how it is. We’re adults now, remember?” Sat spreads her arms, and one of her arms ends up around Raina’s shoulders. “Hey, you,” she snuggles close, like they did when they were kids. 

“Hey,” Raina blushes, glancing away. 

Sat ponders something. “How are … how are things with Darby?”

Raina shrugs. “We’re kinda … we see other people, but when we’re together, it’s just us.”

“Oh, cool,” Sat doesn’t get it but she doesn’t really wanna talk about that much. “Could I, uh, could I kiss you?”

Raina squeaks, she actually squeaks. “What?! I mean … I … what?” she twists around, staring at Sat. 

Sat’s heart flips over. “… forget it, I’m sorry … the … the fucking fumes from the sink …” she waves a hand. 

Raina puts a hand up, cupping Sat’s cheek. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the 10th grade, Sat. Of course you can kiss me.” 

Sat’s eyes widen, then she dips forward into the kiss. 

It’s different than kissing boys. Raina’s mouth is smaller and her tongue is less pushy, and she makes contented noises as Sat moves. Raina hooks a hand behind Sat’s head and slides her other hand around Sat’s back, pressing them closer. It’s weird, feeling another set of breasts pushed up against hers, but Sat kinda likes it. They nearly topple over, finally rolling so that Sat is half pinning Raina to the couch. 

“… did you just want a kiss?” Raina asks, panting, staring up at Sat with eyes as big as saucers. 

“… nah.” Sat says, toying with the hem of Raina’s shirt. “Is that ok?”

“Yeah, that’s ok,” Raina smiles. “That’s more than ok.”

 

+1

The Goat has received many offerings over the years. Blood, bones, freshly killed meat, hair … a trembling girl bound and gagged to a stake in a field … mounds of corn and gourds at the harvest … a stillborn baby … 

This, however, is new.

There are four of them, all stripped to the waist and bearing the Goat’s symbols marked out in charcoal and ash and fresh blood. Three females and a male, though the male wears his hair as long. 

The first approaches, one the Goat knows well: Darby. She makes her offering of fresh earth and bows her head. Then she does something surprising. 

Darby leans forward and kisses the Goat on the maw.

The next steps forward, a dark-haired female with dark markings around her eyes. She offers fresh water, and kisses the Goat too. 

Next is the male, who brings a smoldering offering of the embers from a fire. The male kisses more forcefully than the previous two, as if he expects a bite in return. The Goat is tempted to oblige, but resists. 

The last is a trembling female. She holds a bird’s wing in her hands and sets it down with the other offerings. Her kiss is sweet, and the Goat wishes to keep her close, but relinquishes her too. She backs up to join her friends. 

It is a great task that they ask of the Goat. However, they performed the ritual perfectly, and gave the Goat a new offering. 

The Goat will oblige them and reward their faithfulness and bravery. 

Summoning power, the Goat raises the elements around the group. The wind picks up first, swirling about and trapping them inside the circle. It catches the smoldering ritual fire, which roars higher and higher. Rain joins the wind, swirling about and drenching the faithful and the Goat. Then the ground beneath them cracks and groans.

From the earth, from beneath the remains of the fire, drenched in wet much and hair blown from the storm … is a male form. He crawls forward, gasping and retching, towards the faithful. 

They wail and go to him, draping him in cloths and holding him close. Each of them kisses the newcomer, the one who was returned to them. With each kiss, he breathes easier, he sees clearer, his heart beats stronger and his hands clutch at them more steadily. 

The Goat watches, grins, and vanishes into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Sat and Tanner's first kisses ever (with each other)
> 
> 2\. Tanner's first kiss with a guy (Kayden)
> 
> 3\. Darby's first, and only, kiss with a guy (Kayden)
> 
> 4\. Raina's first kiss (Darby)
> 
> 5\. Sat's first kiss with a girl (Raina)
> 
> +1 The Goatman's first kisses ever (Darby, Sat, Kayden, Raina)


End file.
